Alleged mobster sentenced to year in prison for extortion

By Rich Calder

A reputed Columbo-family
mobster was sentenced to a year in jail on extortion charges Friday after
spending nearly a half hour passionately pleading with a federal judge for
sympathy by reminding him that he’s already spent more than two decades behind
bars for a rape he didn’t commit.

Manhattan federal Judge Kevin
Castel cut Scott Fappiano, 53, a mini-break considering the wiseguy was facing
between 15 to 21 months in prison after copping a plea to being a part of a
massive gangland effort to control the New York-New Jersey garbage carting
industry.

‘I’ve done enough time for more
than two people! I just want to live a normal life.’

He waved his hands and told the
judge how a cocaine addiction he’s battling and the “tough time” he had finding
legitimate work after being released from prison led him down a wrong path. He
also ranted about how his Staten Island home recently burned down and how
should be spared jail time to “to put my house in order.”

“I’ve done enough time for more
than two people! I just want to live a normal life,” pleaded Fappiano, who
became a poster boy for DNA-crime scene testing in 2006 when he was cleared in
the 1983 rape of a cop’s wife.

Castel, however, felt some jail
time was warranted – especially since Fappiano was already convicted of another
mob-related crime after being sprung and caught a “break” by only being
sentenced to probation.

“This is a circumstance where
the reset has been hit again,” Castel said. “You have a price to pay and then
you can get on with your life.”

Fappiano was sentenced to 20 to
50 years in prison after a Brooklyn jury found him guilty of raping and
sodomizing a woman in a brutal Dec. 1, 1983, attack. The woman’s cop husband
was bound and forced to watch the horror.

The cop’s wife identified him
from a mug shot, and prosecutors brought the case to trial despite Fappiano
being a half-foot shorter than the 5-foot, 10-inch Italian-looking man she
described as her attacker.

He remained in Attica before
the Innocence Project got involved and cleared his name. The non-profit group’s
lawyers tracked down a private Texas lab that had samples of jogging pants the
victim was wearing at the time of the rape and found through testing that the
male DNA on it didn’t match Fappiano.

But even after his stunning
release, Fappiano still managed to find trouble.

He was one of 127 people
arrested in 2011 in the biggest US mob racketeering crackdown ever.

He was sentenced to one month
of time served and three years of probation after copping a plea to
loan-sharking and extortion charges.

The Brooklyn federal judge who
sentenced him, Kiyo Matsumoto, said Fappiano’s wrongful conviction in the rape
case played a “very significant” role in her decision to not send him back to
prison.

He was busted again in January
2013 along with 31 other reputed mobsters for allegedly scheming with rival
Mafia families to shake down owners of legitimate garbage companies and
secretly assume control of their operations.

Fappiano admitted to shaking
down a wire-wearing FBI informant for a no-show job at the informant’s waste
hauling company and other crimes.

Fappiano also has ties to the
Gambino crime family.

He had three “made” uncles who
rose to power in the Gambino ranks, including two notorious
capos-turned-canaries, Frank “Frankie Fap” Fappiano and Michael “Mikey Scars”
DiLeonardo.

His third Mafia uncle, the late
Frank DeCicco, was “Dapper Don” John Gotti’s first underboss.